Interpersonal Forgiveness in Workplace Relationships A study examining the associations between forgiveness, rumination, forgiveness climate and work performance.

Abstract

Conflicts occur inevitably and may also happen between colleagues at work. Forgiveness is an example of a productive response to these conflicts. It helps to restore positive work relationships, that are important for an organization’s productivity. The current study examined whether there was an association between forgiveness and work performance (task and contextual). Further, it is investigated whether rumination mediated and forgiveness climate moderated this association. The sample consisted of 108 participants (21 – 64 years) who have been recruited from various organizations in the Netherlands. The results showed that there only was an association between forgiveness and contextual perfomance. No significant effects were found for the association between forgiveness and task performance, rumination as a mediator or forgiveness climate as a moderator. However, in additional exploratory analyses, it appears that when individuals are able to forgive their offender completely this is associated with forgiveness climate. Further, it has been found that forgiveness mediate the association between forgiveness climate and contextual performance. This finding suggests that a forgiveness climate in an organization might be important to stimulate forgiveness among employees and this might increase their contextual performance. Finally, implications for further are discussed.